Posts Tagged ‘California’

AB5: California’s much-predicted freelancer disaster

“California’s new employment law has boomeranged and is starting to crush freelancers” [Elaine Pofeldt, CNBC; Kerry Flynn, CNN Business] “As with many of my colleagues today, because I live in California, I was just told that I can no longer hold a paid position with SB Nation.” [Rebecca Lawson, Mavs Moneyball; Whitson Gordon thread on Twitter] “Separately, there’s some bit of irony in the fact that just a few months ago, Vox itself had a headline celebrating AB5 calling it a ‘victory for workers everywhere.’ Except, I guess, the freelancers who worked for Vox.” [Mike Masnick, Techdirt] “These were never good jobs,” claims the measure’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), but lots of freelancers have made clear they disagree [Billy Binion] “Mainstream politicians and pundits love to cite ‘unintended consequences’ when their preferred policies cause harm in the exact ways libertarians said they would.” [Elizabeth Nolan Brown, earlier]

More: impacts on music, theater, and the performing arts make AB5 a creative-unfriendly law [Joshua Kosman and Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle]

Filed under: California, music and musicians, newspapers, publishers, wage and hour suits

Constitutional law roundup

“North Dakota legislators attempt to retroactively change the terms of contracts between manufacturers and dealers of farm equipment. Well, crack open your Con Law casebook because that violates the Contract Clause of Article I, Section 10. So holds the Eighth Circuit (over a dissent), treating the reader to a history of the clause from 1789 to the New Deal and beyond.” [IJ “Short Circuit” on Association of Equipment Manufacturers v. Burgum]
Subsidies conditioned on, and meant to promote, an official orthodoxy: California moves to approve $50 million state fund for film and TV production earmarked for producers who “share” state’s “values” on reproductive rights [Eugene Volokh]
Not your usual combination: Cato Institute, Brennan Center, and Sierra Club join in amicus brief to challenge President’s powers under National Emergencies Act to divert funds appropriated for other purposes to construction of U.S.-Mexico wall [David Post]
Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain on textualism and the future of the federal judiciary [Federalist Society]
“No person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law,” declares the constitution of Arizona. While judges in Washington have developed a distinctive jurisprudence based on the similar clause in their state’s constitution, the Arizona judiciary as yet has not [Timothy Sandefur]
Does the Commerce Clause really empower the U.S. Congress to criminalize acts of animal cruelty “affecting” interstate commerce, whatever that means? [Jacob Sullum]

Filed under: Arizona, California, constitutional law, contracts, North Dakota

Discontinue prosecution of shoplifting, get more of it

On the West Coast, changing public policies including lighter legal consequences for theft and lower priority of police response have led to a rise in shoplifting and other crime in stores, sometimes blatant. Compounding the problem: stores fear large liability payouts should they chase or touch a suspected miscreant [Christopher F. Rufo, City Journal; Scott P. Lindsay study for Downtown Seattle Association]

Filed under: California, crime and punishment, Seattle

California’s demands on utilities don’t add up

Already driven to the bankruptcy courts by liability over past wildfires, and facing further legal exposure when its equipment sparks new fires, Pacific Gas & Electric generally does not face liability for cutting power supply [Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg Opinion and related with reader comments; Ted Frank on Twitter] “California’s ratepayers like to imagine that someone else can pay the bill… In 2017, the commission refused to let San Diego Gas & Electric raise rates to cover its liability for wildfires that took place in 2007, which is why utilities are now terrified of any risk, however small, that their equipment might start a fire.” [Megan McArdle, Washington Post/Santa Cruz Sentinel] More: Ed Driscoll with link roundup including account of opposition to trimming of trees near PG&E power lines to reduce fire risk; earlier including link to Susan Shelley column.

Filed under: California, trees, utilities, wildfires

California vs. freelance writers

A new California anti-gig-economy law sponsored by a labor-organizer-turned-lawmaker is shaping up as a disaster for freelancers — exactly as Virginia Postrel and others predicted it would. “If a freelance journalist writes for a magazine, newspaper or other entity whose central mission is to disseminate the news, the law says, that journalist is capped at writing 35 ‘submissions’ per year per ‘putative employer.'” The law is set to go into effect January 1. [Hollywood Reporter; earlier here, here, etc.]

Filed under: California, newspapers, publishers, wage and hour suits

Higher education roundup

Federal judge upholds Harvard’s admissions policy against charges of discrimination against Asian Americans, appeal likely [Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times; Roger Clegg/Martin Center; Neal McCluskey, Hechinger Report (“private institutions should be free to have affirmative action, but it should be prohibited at public institutions”); Ilya Shapiro, WSJ last year]
In Florida, following an initiative from Gov. Ron DeSantis, state universities expected to adopt versions of “Chicago Statement” committing to freedom of expression [Mary Zoeller, FIRE]
Under antitrust pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, college association drops guidelines discouraging “poaching” students and other competition for enrollment. Could mean big changes in admissions process [Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed]
In case you missed this angle in the astounding Bruce Hay story earlier: Hay “has already run afoul of [Harvard] investigators for reaching out to journalists (namely me), which they view as an act of retaliation” under Title IX [Kera Bolonik]
“The Galling Push for a Student Debt Bailout” [Cato Daily Podcast with Christian Barnard and Caleb Brown] If more of the same is what you want, you’re in luck with the House majority’s new College Affordability Act [Neal McCluskey, Cato]
The story of Oberlin College’s town-gown legal debacle in the Gibson case [Abraham Socher, Commentary] Return of the loyalty oath, cont’d: update on University of California requirement that all faculty candidates “submit an equity, diversity and inclusion statement as part of their application” [Nora McNulty, Daily Bruin; Stephen Bainbridge; earlier] Professor at the New School exonerated after quoting James Baldwin [FIRE] Students at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, have a lot of sensitivity training in their futures. Coming to 4-H too? [Hans Bader]

Filed under: antitrust, California, colleges and universities, Florida, Harvard, racial preferences, retaliation, Tennessee

“Why the power is going out in California”

An argument that policy and legal factors, including strict liability for wildfires, bars on recovering fire outlays in electric rates, and air-quality limits on prescribed burns, have brought California to its present blackout crisis. [Susan Shelley, L.A. Daily News]

Filed under: California, environment, utilities, wildfires

October 2 roundup

Supreme Court should step in to protect freedom of association against California’s push to obtain donor identities for controversial groups [Ilya Shapiro and James Knight on Cato certiorari amicus brief in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Becerra, earlier]
Civil liberties implications pretty dire if taken seriously: “Trump White House Mulls Monitoring the Mentally Ill for Future Violence” [Cato Daily Podcast with Julian Sanchez and Caleb Brown]
Online platform liability: “all the ignorance about and hostility toward Section 230 of late has been infecting the courts.” Take for example the Ninth Circuit [Cathy Gellis, TechDirt]
New book (not seen by me) by Bruce Cannon Gibney, The Nonsense Factory: The Making and Breaking of the American Legal System, draws a favorable review from Tyler Cowen and a less favorable one from Mark Pulliam;
The loophole that lets 3.1 million persons — even millionaires — collect SNAP benefits even though they wouldn’t otherwise meet eligibility standards, and why some state agencies are fine with this [Angela Rachidi and Matt Weidinger, AEI]
Mark your calendar for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Nov. 16: I’ll be a featured speaker (as will author Dave Daley) at “Reclaiming Our Democracy: The PA Conference to End Gerrymandering” [Fair Districts PA]

Filed under: California, live in person, online speech, Pennsylvania, psychiatry, redistricting reform

Schools and childhood roundup

Britain’s Labour Party conference pledges to take over private schools, confiscating endowments as well as land and property [Benjamin Kentish, Independent]
New York Department of Education readies moves to place private and religious schools under much tighter government control [Peter Murphy, City Journal]
Chicago teachers’ union sends delegation on “solidarity trip” to Venezuela [Mark Glennon, Wirepoints; Hannah Leone, Chicago Tribune]
So-called Blaine Amendments bar religious schools in participating in voucher programs to which they would be admitted were they nonsectarian. A case of religious discrimination, and if so, violative of the First Amendment? [Ilya Shapiro and Dennis Garcia on Cato merits brief in Supreme Court case of Espinosa v. Montana, Trevor Burrus and Patrick Moran on certiorari stage brief]
“The [California] draft curriculum says that ethnic studies courses created by districts from the proposed curriculum will… ‘critique empire and its relationship to white supremacy, …capitalism, and other forms of power and oppression'” [Valerie Strauss, Washington Post/Lowell Sun; Elizabeth Castillo, Cal Matters; Joanne Jacobs]
“Kamala Harris expresses ‘regret’ over California truancy law” [Katie Galioto, Politico; background; “Souvarine”, Daily Kos (“criminal penalties for parents of truant children” are among “the earliest and most enduring progressive victories”; also tracing publicity on the issue to a certain scribbler of “libertarian claptrap,” though I made clear I was building on the earlier work of, e.g., the Marshall Project)]
Despite strenuous efforts in Seattle and D.C. suburbs to impose “equity lens” on school systems and train all sides about implicit bias and systemic racism, no sign that actual outcome gaps are likely to budge [Rebecca Tan, Washington Post]

Filed under: California, Chicago, New York state, religious liberty, schools, Seattle, United Kingdom, Washington D.C.

California moves to throttle the gig economy

If driving for a gig economy platform appealed to you because you could wrap the timing of the work around the other obligations in your life, the California legislature sends its sincerest condolences [Megan McArdle, Washington Post/Paducah Sun; Michael Munger, The Hill, Steven Greenhut in July; earlier here, etc.] More: Richard Epstein, Hoover.

Filed under: California, taxis and ridesharing, wage and hour suits